Provisions tucked into the legislation, which the House is expected to vote on as early as tomorrow, represent a major departure from traditional intelligence agency roles in plugging leaks and conducting domestic law enforcement, according to government watchdog groups and intelligence professionals.

"In a moment when the intelligence community should be looking forward toward what it does best, the arrest powers represent a step back toward the Nixon-era abuses," said Jason Vest, an investigator with the Project on Government Oversight, a nonprofit watchdog group.

Loch Johnson, a top Senate aide on the Church Committee, which investigated CIA abuses in the 1970s, called it a "worrisome" expansion of power."

That's why we have the FBI and other law enforcement officials," he said. "I don't know that this needs to be an intelligence officer's function. I wouldn't think it should be."

"As a matter of general principle, I believe that there can be no doubt that criticism in time of war is essential to the maintenance of any kind of democratic government. . . Too many people desire to suppress criticism simply because they think it will give some comfort to the enemy to know that there is such criticism. If that comfort makes the enemy feel better for a few moments, they are welcome to it as far as I am concerned, because the maintenance of the right of criticism in the long run will do the country maintaining it a great deal more good than it will do the enemy, and it will prevent mistakes which might otherwise occur."
-Robert A. Taft, Republican Senator from Ohio, Dec. 19, 1941

"Secrecy and a free, democratic government don't mix."
-Harry S. Truman, US President

"A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there's no question about it."
-George W. Bush, Business Week, July 30, 2001